In The Bedroom
by Clytemnestra Abigaile
Summary: Interconnected one-shots about big moments in Wally's and Artemis's relationship all revolving around different bedrooms. (some spoilers inside, so read with caution)
1. Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1

The first time he saw her room was one night after the failed exercise. Every night was a sleepless one for the entire team. Every night was spent blinking and breathing and trying to piece together the events of a few nights before, each lung gasping for oxygen to fill it and remind its body that it was still alive, still going through each day as if that horrid exercise had never happened, never ripped their minds apart and made them near crazy.

Her curtains swayed whenever the wind hit it. It was nippy for mid-October, and it was raining, oddly enough, and harsh thunder and lightning lit up the otherwise dark room. Her lamp was on, though. The one beside her bed was already flickering yellow, signaling the need to change the light bulb. The blanket covering her legs wasn't doing enough for her. She tossed and she turned, trying to find a comfortable position, but every way she tried to sleep made reminded her of how she looked lying asleep: like a corpse, slowly rotting into dust that would one day rejoin the air. She was taught from an early age that fear was something to be ashamed of, something real mercenaries cannot live with, something that holds you back and gets you dead. Hah. That really proved true a few days ago. Her days spent training endlessly, her cuts and bruises and scars and dead on impact killings did nothing to save her from that zeta beam. It did nothing to keep the team safe. It did nothing to keep the planet safe. What kind of supposedly amazing super archer dies before firing that last shot- that last shot that could've saved everyone and the planet and her friends and the people she cared about? Why is she even so caught up in this mess, so affected by this simple exercise, designed to fail and make them see that they can't always win the battle?

She heard a knock on the door and considered pretending she to be asleep, pretending everything was okay even if whoever was outside probably knew that no one was asleep. Assuming she knew them well enough, M'gann was probably baking until she couldn't find ingredients or containers and plates to put her food; Kaldur would probably be sitting on the beach, feeling the sand between his webbed toes and contemplating how he handled the situation, as he always does after failed missions; Conner would probably be training his new pet Wolff with his Sphere down where they keep the Bioship; Robin was probably making some new additions to his utility belt, something that would've saved them if he had them on hand in that failed exercise; and Wally was where Wally always is: the kitchen. Taking that into consideration, Artemis had absolutely no idea who was outside, but whoever was knocked again and again. She tried to say "come in," but her throat was dry and her lungs tired and she had not nearly enough energy to speak. Whoever was there decided the quiet meant enter, as did the smell of burnt chocolate and Wally West. He seemed more awkward than usual in his Flash Pajamas (undoubtably a gift from his uncle) and an old t-shit stained with grease, probably from some old experiment he did.

"M'gann made cookies and I figured you haven't eaten in a while so... I brought some milk too." He wasn't paying much attention though. He was looking around. She could tell this was his first time in her room, let alone a girl's room. It was barely any different from Wally's except maybe a bit neater. It also had four white walls, a full-sized bed, a bedside table and a lamp, a desk with a wooden chair that hurts your butt if you sit too long, and a bookshelf. The shelf was full of books on different styles of fighting, on archery, the history of bows and arrows and their styles, Vietnam tour guides, history and dictionaries and on psychology. That last one must have surprised Wally because it made him laugh a litte, something so distant that it made her scoff.

Then his eyes set on her. She was looking down, curled into a ball, arms around her legs covered in grey yoga pants, hair free from it's usual tie and falling over her shoulder in a tangled mess. She felt self-conscious, fiddling with her toes each other under the blanket, embarrassed that he caught her in such an open, vulnerable state. She turned away.

"You okay?" He asked, but he already knew the answer- everybody did. None of them were okay or fine or alright or, as Robin would say, traught. They were the epitomes of distraught, not okay, not alright, not fine, just a mess bottled up into teenaged superheroes.

"Me neither," he replied to her silence. It was uncalled for though. His footsteps rang closer to her ears, implying he was getting closer, so she glanced up. He seemed tired, under eyes dark and eyes watery like he was about to yawn or maybe about to cry. She didn't want to ask. She figured she didn't know him well enough to ask about something that personal. But, because she was Artemis and he was Wally, she did anyway.

"What gives, Baywatch? Not as tough as you say you are, are you?"

His jaw tightened for a second and he looked hurt. She felt bad, really, but that wasn't how they worked. They berated each other and argued until they were frustrated, but contentedly so. They were brutally honest and both straight to the point, not beating around the bush, and saying what nobody else had the courage to say. So that's what he did.

"I'm not sure about the rest entirely, but I don't think any of us realized how much we need you on this team until we lost you back there." He held his neck and shrugged. She looked away, unable to bear seeing his face look like that. She tried to pretend that she wasn't talking to the same Kid Flash that blew up her hair dryer in his latest failed experiment or the same Kid Flash that can eat ten hamburgers in a sitting or the same Kid Flash that always fights with her. He's just another person in the room who happened to have met her before, just another person who knew her name and knew nothing of her history or of her, just another person who doesn't care about her.

"Just leave. I've caused enough mental damage for a lifetime and if you don't leave soon I'm gonna cause some physical damage too." A _clank _said he put down the plate and glass he was carrying. He was standing beside her, and she felt her bottom lip quiver, but she still refused to give him the satisfaction of knowing his words touched her heart.

"That's fine. I'll live. Cuz I'm not leaving. Look, I get if you think you ruined everything, but I'm just trying to get it into that stubborn head of yours that everybody in this cave would willingly give their life for you and would be heartbroken if you died and would have done anything to get revenge if you really had died. Any of us would have done it and we tried, believe us. But no, you still think you're alone and if you keep doing shit like this you will be..."

This wasn't happening. This wasn't happening. The words felt like lies, words that couldn't be true in a million years. She grew up with the idea that selfishness and self preservation were on in the same, that to be alive was meaning to put yourself first in whatever you do. That's how Jade lived and how she'd reason punching her sister in the solar plexus and throwing sais at her and letting her baby sister take the punishment from her father when she couldn't dodge the knives fast enough.

"...like you don't care that you actually have people who'd do these kinds of things for you! God, how..."

"I don't wanna be alone," she whispered, barely audible to even herself, but Wally must've been looking at her and saw her lips move because he stopped talking and asked what she said. She bit her lip, but he didn't get the message that she didn't want to talk about it. She had been alone for four years, a mother lost to prison, a sister who abandoned her to be what they agreed to never become, and a father determined to mercilessly abuse his children and form them into the next great assassins. Then she wasn't alone. She had Green Arrow, the new-found team and her now-home mother. And then this happened and she was reminded of how bad things happen when she cares about people and why she remained so isolated all of these years. She's this magnet, drawing pain to everybody she surrounds herself with, making it stick to them and not to her. And if it quite frankly came down to it, she'd rather be in pain than have any of these people she cares about be in pain. In isolation is how good warriors live. That's what they have to. She's done it before and she can easily do it again. She can be alone again if she must.

He sighed in desperation. "I don't know what to say anymore, Artemis."

"Then don't say anything. Just... go." And he did and she was left to wallow in her choices and what she did in that exercise. She's left to feel things she had once suppressed and she let herself cry for the first time since she was nine and Jade jumped out that window and never looked back and came back for her.

He sat outside her door, just listening to her sobbing until eventually, her bawling turned into sniffling and into deep, consistent breathing; he knew she was finally asleep, and so he slept too for the first time since lying on that cold metal bed on October 16.


	2. Chapter 2

The first time they shared a bed was at about 2:00 AM after they all got back from Santa Prisca. It was a late mission, ending as the sun was making its way down and the sky had somehow become this conundrum of pink and purple and orange that can't really be recreated even in the most beautiful paintings. In that light, he swore she was glowing like a billion fireflies resided under her skin. He'd never forget how she looked at that moment, nor the mixture of a gratitude and pure loathing in the look she gave her dad who was stuck in that Atlantean mud.

Sleep felt so distant again, like trying to reach up and grab Sirius out of the night sky and hold it in his hand. His clothes felt like an alien covering him, and even his skin felt like a thousand caterpillars were crawling all over it. His hair soaked his pillow case, making his face wet whenever he turned over, pushing sleep even further away. His brain was cloudy. Usually, he always had something to say, but lately he was this blank page waiting for words to fill him up again.

Finally, he was lost in his lack of thoughts and fell asleep until he felt something tickle his nose and pressure on the right side of his bed as if someone was leaning against it.

"Wally?"

"Mm?" He was still thinking incoherently and groggy.

"Can I sleep here tonight? I mean, it's just... I can't go back to sleep." And before he knew it, his body scooted over and she was in bed beside him. Her hair was wild and it was on his hands and arms and somehow that smell he couldn't really place shook him awake. It made him realize that she was actually beside him in his bed trying to sleep.

"So why are you up?"

"Nightmare. Can't sleep."

He blinked a few times, trying to get the scum out of his eyes. He turned to look at her closely and saw her silhouette, the curve of her nose and her prominent chin and thick lips, her thin neck and flat stomach. She looked so small, so fragile, like a single sigh could shatter her and leave glass shards in her place beside him. He didn't realize how close they were, sharing the warmth the quilt his mom made him that he deemed 'uncool' as soon as he got it. Now, though, it felt like home, comfort when he just couldn't function.

Artemis sniffled like she had just been crying, but she was Artemis Crock, the tough, untouchable archer with skills he couldn't begin describing. He readjusted how he was lying down so his shoulders faced up.

"Do you wanna talk about it?"

"Not really, but thanks anyway."

But he still had a million questions swimming through his head. For some reason he thought they had some unsaid friendship full of trust and arguments and teasing, but it's like she was some absent shell of a person until recently, and like she caught on fire when she saw her dad finally stuck beneath her.

"What was he like as a dad?"

Her eyebrows shot up, lips pursed. "Awful. Goddamn awful."

"What was it like?"

She gulped, pulling her arms out of the covers and rubbing her palm with her thumb in a circular motion. They were covered in calluses, he noticed, especially on the last three digits of her right hand where her fingers pull the string of her bow back. He didn't know if it was the time or just her need for comfort, but he grabbed her hand in his, somehow flicking a switch and getting her to spew out words. He listened as she spoke of her vigorous training since she was six and a half. He listened as she spoke of the numerous beating she took for being too slow or too weak or too hesitant. He listened as she spoke of learning first aid from healing her stab wound given to her by her father after he found out her sister left. He listened as she spoke of barely passing the easiest classes because she was out late killing instead of studying. He listened as she spoke of the glorious day her mother came home and in a quiet, calm voice forced her father out of the house.

"It's kind of funny, right? How much I hate him but I can't because without him I wouldn't be me? Wouldn't be able to shoot and arrow or knock people out with a single kick?"

He wasn't sure if it's because it was so early in the morning or if it was this unequivocal need to comfort her, but he brought her hand to his chest and pressed it down just hard enough for them both to feel his heartbeat. His hands were clammy and she could probably tell, but he could never say that out loud. The pulse was something constant when everything else seemed to come and go and arrive and leave. Maybe she could think back to his pulse whenever she remembered anything, and maybe it would make her feel like something irreplaceable too. That's what he hoped she'd think. But the dug-dug of his heart kept getting faster and faster like he was mid battle with someone who could match his pace for once. It was cold- late December- and they both knew it, making them both get closer, skin to skin and cloth to cloth. Somehow it made the openness in the bed and the snow outside the windows that was still falling more bearable.

"Keep going"

"Why? That's pretty much all you need to know and more," She scoffed.

"Was it really all that bad?" He sounded too full of pity for her; she didn't want pity, but somehow she let it slide.

She thought about it for a while, then answered "no" and proceeded to talk about when Jade "borrowed" a pink bike for her and the time she and her mom made the Nguyen family's special fresh spring rolls after her father gave her a big bruise with a slap at her cheek. She recalled punching some boy named Andrew after he kissed her during some game of spin the bottle in the first and only party she'd ever attended in sixth grade.

"The only really good moment with my father was learning archery." Something in her eyes changed, he noticed, like somebody lit a sparkler up and threw it into her eyes at that exact moment. "Hitting my first bullseye was honestly the most amazing moment of my life. Learning the pulleys and mechanisms and feeling my growing calluses just made it more amazing." She smiled, rubbing her fingers together in her free hand.

"I know the feeling," he said, remembering the first time he realized he could run faster than most kids on the track team, the wind hitting his face and his eyes dry and starting to tear up to rejuvenate themselves.

"He didn't say anything like 'well done' or 'good job,' but I could tell that's what he meant when he looked at me and nodded. Is it stupid and sad and pathetic to say that I was really happy I was finally able to do him proud?" She laughed again, making Wally realize how beautifully raspy and somewhat melodic her voice was. In all honesty, it made him want to stay where he was and listen to her talk for hours, but he'd never tell her that; she'd have his head.

"It's alright. I'm pretty sure I'd think the same if I were you." He tried to send her a reassuring smile and squeeze her hand comfortingly, but made him feel awkward and tense, things he definitely wasn't used to. Their eyes connected, green with grey, and somehow it wasn't awkward anymore. Their hands still felt his quickening heartbeat, keeping them grounded.

"Wally?"

"Yeah, babe?"

"Good night." And she pulled back her hand, closed her eyes and turned on her side, facing him. She looked so peaceful, her thought, and her body heat was radiating toward him and under the covers. He didn't remember being so cozy and at peace, just looking at her face as she tried to get some sleep. He scooted closer to her, leaving only a span for space between them.

He could get used to this.


	3. Chapter 3

The first time they went on a date, it was not at all aster. He spilled his spaghetti all over her white blouse and made frequent visits to the men's room to flush out all of the cola he drank during the empty, awkward silences between them. One top of all that, he brought too little money to buy the many buckets of popcorn and drinks while they watched the new Ashton Kutcher romantic comedy. He kept catching this look in her eye, some combination of vexation, amusement and judgment that worried him to no end. She kept that face on until he brought her to the zeta tube of Central City and he leaned in to kiss her and she leaned away; their goodbye was an quick and awkward hug because he sped away as soon as she let go. He didn't expect it to hurt him that much, seeing how disgusted and confused and utterly mortified she was. He was even more hurt by how she didn't even want to kiss him, but he kind of understood; he wouldn't want to kiss him either.

He ran home, silently yelling at himself for being such an idiot and losing his only chance with a girl of her caliber: beautiful, charming, witty, snarky, intelligent, powerful, cunning, strong, and just plain _perfect_.

His front door shut loudly. He heard his mother calling and asking how his date went and it he wanted some freshly baked cookies, but he didn't care. He just ran up the stairs, skipping steps at a time and slamming and locking his door behind him. He paced, working around the many pieces of empty cartons, boxes and cups he had yet to clean up. He grabbed a pillow off the mighty stack his mother put on his bed to make it look more classy and less like a pig's sty and released the scream he'd been holding in his throat into it. How could he have been so stupid? How did he ruin their first date? He had thought he'd at least make it to the third date before messing it up. She's so resplendent and he was just the most average looking, freckle-faced, ginger nerd who acted too cocky but actually wanted to stick his head in the mud

"Wally?"

"Go away, Mom." And she didn't reply.

He drifted off on his bed some time within the next few minutes after replaying the worst scenes of that night; he woke up when loud raps and taps hit his door.

"Hey, Kid, open up or I'm gonna kick the door down."

He screamed at his uncle to leave but he heard a jingle and a muttered "Thanks, Mary," and his door swung open and shut behind Uncle Barry.

"So, what's the problem? Your mom said you shut yourself in your room right after your date with a babe." His uncle sat down on his desk chair, leaning his chest against where most people lean their back.

He really considered not telling his uncle, but remembering all the favors he pulled for him, all the nights his uncle told his mom he was sleeping at their house while he went out to parties he regretting going to the night after; he ended up sitting up and beginning the story of his night and how horrific and like an awful cliché 80's movie it seemed like. His uncle just sat there, occasionally wincing and nodding and stifling a laugh, and he couldn't help but feel more embarrassed and feel his blood rushing to his face.

"And the worst part is that I feel like we could've been something amazing and I just shot myself in the foot and she's this graceful, amazing, beautiful piece of art and I feel like I'm taking these giant scissors and ripping it up! But at other times, I just wanna circle around her and take all her oxygen away in a wormhole so she can stop being such she-devil and harassing me for the littlest thing!" He raised his hands up, unable to understand himself. "Why am I so caught up in this? Why am I so caught up in her?"

"I don't know, Kid, but lemme ask you this." His uncle pointed a finger at him, dramatically. "Do you like her?"

"That's just it! I don't know!" He could hear himself breathing, his chest moving up and down heavily like he himself was struggling to get oxygen. His eyebrows somehow found their way toward each other, and his shaking and callused hands formed fists at his sides. He grunted, pulling at his hair until he was sure it was going to be ripped from his skull. "Uncle Barry, how was your first date with Aunt Iris?"

His uncle rubbed his chin, trying to rack his brain for that day. "Oh yeah! I met her at a crime scene she was covering and I was doing police work at. Using the signature speedster charm, I got her to go with me to that night's carnival. We ate a lot, cotton candy, funnel cakes, popcorn, corndogs, pretzels, and the part that made me the happiest is that she barely complained and ate all the food I got for her. We played carnival games and by the time I walked her home, she had a few new stuffed toys. I kissed her outside her door and it was amazing." His uncle had this glint in his eye, like his whole life began at that point when their lips touched and their fingers laced together. His infatuation with Artemis seemed like such a pathetic excuse for love in comparison to what his uncle and his aunt felt for each other. With their constant bickering and adding insult to injury with a well-timed blow to their bloated egos, he and she were obviously not meant to be like his aunt and uncle were; their relationship had stars crossed for it, and it really didn't seem to be working out. But this ringing in his head just told him that he could never imagine never holding her callused hand again, never seeing her eyes squint when she smiled at him, never pressing those satiny lips against his chapped ones. It seemed like a life without colour, without sight, without living, and he wasn't sure he could give that up. But would he really rather spend his time pining over a girl who was way out of his league than look for a girl who would settle for him?

"Okay, Uncle Barry," he said halfheartedly. The words held no meaning, no vivacity, but his uncle, forever aloof and unconnected with his emotions, stood up, brushed his pants off and asked if he was up for a late night patrol of Central City. He said no, of course. He would much rather stay in his bed, eat some take-out (Chinese, not Italian) and sulk about how much he lost and how much he'd kill to get it back. But, as of that moment, he just slept until his dreams turned into blackness and he didn't remember anything.


	4. Chapter 4

The first time she saw him almost die, her heart stopped. His eyes were shut tight and his body was limp. It fell to the ground. She couldn't (and for a while didn't) do anything, but she swore her arrows shot faster and more accurately than before he fell, and each wound she obtained she'd expel in a more painful blow.

"Just a few more minutes" was the phrase that pushed her on, kept her fighting. Nocking, aiming, firing, each arrow was flying with a mind of its own and hitting its target with a thud. Numbness was in her blood, pumping around like an anesthetic drug, making her bravely void. He would be okay. She knew it. He was never the type to give up.

His own blood was pooling around him, staining his uniform and seeping into his hair and nails. The wound was open in his shoulder, a bullet trapped somewhere in his tissue. He could probably name whatever body part it hit if it did hit something. Hell, she knew he could name any of the bacteria the wound collected while he lay on the cold January floor.

Robin said M'gann would pick him up and bring him to the Bioship.

"No, I'll get him. You're closer to the objective. Just watch my back." She ran. It would have been better if she were hit. He could have just swooped in mere seconds and picked her body up, brought her to safety and joined the fight again. But she was only human, no metagene involved, and her slow pace and pathetic strength would get him killed. The sound of guns firing was far away, though she knew a few men were shooting at her; she shot right back, hitting them easily straight in their knees. Would it be sadistic to say she enjoyed watching them crumple to the ground like pieces of paper? She would have scoffed, except she had bigger issues at the moment. All she could really clearly hear was the sound of her feet padding across the length of the warehouse and her shallow breaths. She was getting closer and closer, the sight paining her more and more until she finally got close enough to see how dreadful he actually looked. The body wasn't of the Wally West she knew, the Wally full of spark, energy, optimism, a smile and a snarky attitude. This figure seemed as pale as a wax sculpture. She didn't want to check his pulse. It would be too painful to feel no heartbeat, feel no life in him. She didn't know what she'd do if he was gone.

He was heavier than she expected, especially since she was basically carrying dead weight. She was glad she was an archer when she slung him over her shoulder, happy her arms were strong and muscular. That didn't mean it wasn't painful, though.

"Get back to the ship. We're outnumbered." Kaldur's voice seemed desperate, but she didn't question it.

He was still bleeding. She regretted not wrapping it up in her mask or something, but she was too close to the door to put him down and fix that. The hurried conversations of her teammates in her head were like background noise, being drowned out by the boy on her shoulder. The strain in her knees didn't matter. The fact her shoulder was grazed by a bullet didn't matter. Frankly, the mission didn't matter. All that she cared about, all that kept her feet moving and her focus forward was the fact his shoulder was bleeding onto her pants and if she didn't stop it soon, he might be gone.

"Open the Bioship." It was an order, not a question. M'gann did so.

Stepping into the ship was difficult. Her jaw tightened and her eyes squinted as she struggled to walk up the inclined platform and into the ship. She nearly ran to the cot and she tried her best to gently put him down. The area smelled of disinfectant and alcohol from previous missions. It made her nose scrunch up and made her think of when she used to bandage her wounds from her father, alone in her room, rubbing salt to remove the dirt and biting her blanket to keep herself from crying or screaming.

She ripped his cowl off and dropped it into the sink after she turned on the tap. She watched the blood slowly ooze off into the drain until it was only a little bit stained. His red hair was even redder, dark and matted to his head. It was a pathetic sight to look at, seeing someone usually so awkwardly confident looks so frail, like a single touch to his shoulder could kill him.

"Artemis! Is he...?" She floated in quickly, quietly like if she put a foot down she'd wake up all the bodies nearby.

"I..." Her brows knotted together. "I don't know. I don't wanna check." Her shoes looked suddenly interesting, off-black boots with straps. The blood on her pants was still drying up; she felt like the blood was still running down her leg.

"This mission was a failure."

"No kidding." She saw Kaldur and Robin look quickly at Wally's body quickly.

"He'll be okay, right?"

Nobody dared answer her; they didn't know either.

She wasn't there when he woke up. She hated herself for it. She has this tendency to run away from problems, to put them behind her and pretend they aren't there. She covers her feelings with violence, words and anything she can think of to make herself look tougher, untouchable, plated in steel.

She had fired 424 arrows while he was in the infirmary. Each was imperfect, a little too far from the center of the target. It left her on edge calluses on the last digits of her three middle fingers. They were rough from years of training, but she liked how the calluses prevented pain, like this shield for her fingers. If only her heart was just as callused, just as strong, just as able to be okay when it needed to be.

She was curled in a ball, feet planted firmly on the ground, evaluating her shots. They were awful. She hadn't shot this poorly since she was almost 14.

"Artemis," She turned. "He's-"

That was all she needed. She dropped her bow and her quiver as she left, heart thumping in her chest like that of a hummingbird. The beating rang into her ears, quaking her body as she ran to the infirmary. She pushed the door open with all her might and stopped in her tracks when she got inside.

Some pillows propped the top half of his body up. His shoulder wrapped in some gauze and an IV cord inserted into the top of his hand. The sheets that covered him were stark white, as were the walls. The colour burnt her eyes. She never liked white. It always threw her on a loop. There's something too pure and innocent about white; she was never pure and innocent.

"Uh, hi?" It sounded like a question. Why was it a question? He sometimes really didn't make sense to her. "Do you know if there's any way I can get some food?"

Before she knew it she was in front of him and punching him in the shoulder, "What," she punched him again, "the," and again, "hell, Baywatch?" and she punched him one last time. She didn't realize she had no air in her lungs left. Her chest was rising up and down rapidly, her teeth were grinding, her eyebrows were crinkled together.

"What?"

"Why are you such an idiot?!" She punched him again. She knew it was going to bruise, but she needed to release that tension in her muscles and the breath she'd been holding since the Bioship landed. He looked confused.

"Why did you get yourself shot! It almost hit something important!"

"The subclavian artery. That would've been really messy"

"You think I give a shit about your arteries?! You're so clueless!" She smacked his head; this time he flinched. He looked hurt, and she felt bad for a second, but then she remembered all he'd done and she continued scowling.

"What did I do? All I did was get hit by a bullet in the shoulder!"

"It's not that, you idiot! God, you expect me to go around pretending our date never happened? Well, guess what, Einstein, it did!" She paused. Her hands were up in the air and their eyes were connected steadily. It sent this weird electricity through her nerves and made her shiver a little bit, but she shook it off and continued scolding him. "I thought you'd at least talk to me after, but you didn't." She licked her lips. "Why didn't you?"

He chuckled for a second.

"You think this is funny, idiot? You thi-"

"After that disaster of a date? Why would you want me to?"

"Cuz I like you, asshole! Gosh, do I need to spell it out for you? When I say I like you, that means I like you even if you're a dork and a loser and you make me wanna punch you in the face almost all the time! Even if you spill stuff on me and make me pay for all the bucketloads of food you buy! Because, like hell, that was the best date of my life, and I'm upset I didn't get asked out again!" She was out of energy. She was tired. Her voice was cracking as she spoke. She sounded weak. She sounded not like herself. She could see the change in his eyes when she sounded so feeble and timid and spineless. She felt herself get pulled down by the still blood-stained uniform and their lips pressed together and something inside her exploded. She sat down on the bed beside him and leaned toward him to make sitting up less painful for him. They were like that for a minute, just slightly parted and chapped lips together, moving melodically to the grumble of the heater and the low volume of some old early 2000's sit com that only had two seasons. He pushed her away first, biting his bottom lip and looking up at her expectantly.

"You wanna grab Burger King to go and bring it here and we can have a date here?"

"I hate you, you know?" But then she kissed him again and she felt okay again, even if she could feel her heartbeat in her neck and her cheeks flush.


	5. Chapter 5

The first time they made out was as soon as training ended. Black Canary was teaching them South American dance-like martial art with rapid jabs and kicks, which Wally thought was a little bit of a joke until Artemis elbowed him. Robin volunteered himself and she pushed Wally into the ring after that comment. She was watching them spar; their movements were fluid like liquid silver, balanced and elegantly executed. After a while, she stopped watching the fight, right about when Black Canary banned the use of super powers while in the ring, since the speed gave him an unfair advantage. Instead, she watched his back muscles, watched them tightening and relaxing as his arms sent out punch after punch and as he spun his legs around for a roundhouse kick to try and bring his opponent down. She bit her lip and blinked a few times, swinging her weight to the other leg and popping her hip out.

She liked his arms. She liked the way they looked his skin-tight yellow spandex suit. She liked how droplets of sweat were beginning to form under his cowl and make it darker. She liked the way his hair fell when he had his mask on. She liked how his deltoid stuck out a bit and made him look more burly than he was. She noticed how he clenched his fists to tight that it made flexor digitoris's stick out like bones trying to rip themselves from his skin. She noticed the mistake in his guarding form, how he put his fists too high and they blocked his vision, and how his elbows were too far from his body to be stable. When she was young and untrained, she stood like that too, cowardly and preparing for a fight she prayer to never have. She learned to stand strong, though. She learned the hard way; she has scars to prove it.

Robin saw the weakness too and successfully front kicked him, knocking him to the ground and being held there by Robin's foot as the machine announced his defeat. She couldn't help but snicker.

"Oh, you think you can take this, babe?" He pushed himself up and stood, facing her square-on.

She scoffed, stepped forward and brought her face near his. They shared their breaths, her steady even ones and his panting and tired ones, in the cubic inches of space between them. His humid breath was hot on her face and sent tingles up and down her spine and toward her near-bare shoulders. "Try me, Wall-Man."

"Maybe I will," he growled back, just soft enough for her to hear it. It was odd to think about, but she found it a little bit sexy, a little bit stimulating, making her lips crave his against them. Her flesh was like that of a freshly plucked goose, and she hoped he wouldn't notice. If he did, he didn't point it out.

She walked into the circle, put her feet a good distance apart and squinted slightly. He did the same across her and furrowed his eyebrows, probably trying to think of his strategy. She knew what she was doing. As an archer, being prepared and ready on her feet was a vital skill; since she began training she could nock, aim and shoot an arrow in 0.92 seconds (her dad had been very proud that day and let her buy a tub of chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream as a way of saying he approved)

Wally was the first one to make a move. He walked briskly forward, placed his palms on the ground and did a round-about kick that soared right over her head as she ducked. She sprang backward, her hands pushing her off and making her soar high before landing and aiming a kick at the side of his head. He caught her foot and twisted it slightly, making her body follow. She curved her back into herself and tumbled forward, making Wally lose his grip on her. She turned back to him and sent a kick at his feet and successfully tripping him. He didn't fail, though, but bounced back up (who knew he was so graceful. She had to remember to laugh at him for that later on.) He kicked at her stomach quickly and landed a hard blow, sending her falling to the ground. As if she expected it, she back bridged and did a backward summersault. She brushed her hair away from her faced and tucked it behind her ear. She saw Wally was getting tired, probably because he had also had that match against Robin, but she knew it was advantageous for her. She was only getting started. She cartwheeled and sent her feet kicking at his chest. He moved backward and barely dodged it.

"Wow, babe, I didn't know you were this-" He cracked his neck, "flexible."

She heard the slightly salacious tone in his voice and decided to play along. "You haven't seen the half of it."

It caught him by surprise. His face wasn't accustomed to having her say things like that to him. It was already late February and their relationship was still a recent one, which was kind of ironic because it was still winter and any person who has been in an English class knows that winter is the time of death and endings; their relationship was more spring-like, new and fresh and gentle. Neither one of them wanted to ruin it; they both were tip-toeing around anything that could potentially ruin their relationship. They didn't say typical loving words, except for the occasional ones Wally says when he's in a particularly good mood or has pissed her off, to which she would roll her eyes (but secretly, she loved the way something inside her tingled when he called her beautiful).

She was getting unfocused. Her time to act was now before the shock wore off. She attacked, performing a handstand and firing her legs toward his chest. He fell over and hit the floor with a thunk. The computer announced his failure and their teammates cheered, M'gann running up behind her and hugging her tightly.

"Good job, Artemis!"

She chuckled before thanking her. She looked back at Wally who was being pulled up by Kaldur. He was staring at her with a look in his eyes that she had only seen once before: the few seconds right before they kissed for the first time. Their eyes locked and she bit her lip. He nodded his head toward the doors and she sighed and laughed a little bit.

A few matches later, Black Canary dismissed them. Artemis decided to stay behind and talk to Canary about her mistakes in the last match against Conner. Apparently, she wasn't thinking nearly as straight as her match against Wally and she had to improve her timing. To that, she inwardly scoffed. Since she was young she had been made to be quick on her feet, dodging knives, punches and the sporadic bullet. She had could tell you about how long a stab wound would take to be fatal by the time she was seven and had learned to disable a typical bomb within two minutes by the time she was twelve, and Canary had to work on timing? She didn't want to give in though. She was the type of person to let her anger simmer away until she was about ready to blow up (which oh so happened to be whenever Wally was talking to her)

The conversation ended abruptly when Red Tornado called and said that a high-level threat was in Gotham City and Batman needed back up. Artemis herself considered going but realized Green Arrow and Batman would have her head for attempting to do something when she wasn't ready and properly trained. She decided to head back to the living room, dropping herself on the long green couch and turning the volume up on the episode of Doctor Who that Robin was watching.

"I love this show," she said.

"I love the Doctor," he said. She laughed, but from the unchanging humourless look on his face he seemed serious (but then again, he was _the _Robin, child prodigy of _the _Batman who was the best liar she had ever met.

They sat there, watching as stone angels turned to life and began to attack Amy in the jungle as the Doctor used his logic to maneuver her through them and prevent her from dying. She liked to think that, as a hero, she did that too but in a lesser sense, solving crimes and using logic to find solutions, but she was more likely to be the brawn of the team with Super Boy and M'gann. Sometimes she felt bad about how underestimated she was, how she was thought to be all muscle and no mind when she probably knew more about weapons and the best techniques to disarm attackers than half of her team. She tried not to let it get to her though.

Wally, on the other hand, was an obvious brain, with his physics, chemistry and biology background. Since she began working for the team, he had always sat beside her on the breakfast counter as she did her work, muttering once in a while about how her answer wasn't rounded off to the right digit or how the mechanism of a certain machine worked. She would never admit it aloud, but she kind of found it slightly attractive (much more so than his eating habits, obviously) and she enjoyed learning from him. He had a brain that was like a sponge, committing everything that involved science and math to his memory. She wasn't as lucky. When she learned, she needed to study hands-on and tactile, focusing on one thing until she understood it completely. Only then would she be able to remember and learn something.

Someone whispered her name, causing her to turn around. It was him, of course. He had a way of knowing when she wanted him around and when she didn't, and how she really did. Her lips curved upward and she patted the seat beside her, calling him to her. He frowned and ushered her to him. Although confused, she decided to go with it and approached him. Immediately he swooped her up and sped her to his room.

"Babe, do you know how great you looked a while ago when we were fighting?"

"Is that implying I don't always look good?" She knew that would make him backtrack and stutter a little; Wally never did like to be misinterpreted.

"What? No. What I'm trying to say is that you looked great a while ago and I caught you checking me out during the fight with Rob an-"

"What? I was _not _checking you out, don't be full of yourself!"

"I know you were, beautiful. That's okay though because when you went against M'gann, boy was I feeling the hots."

"Wally!" She punched him, "We're dating now, you're not supposed to stay stuff like that." He rubbed his arm from where her fist made contact.

"I wasn't looking at her! I was looking at you cuz you looked so good and tough and impish and I don't know if I'm going to just embarrass myself by saying all this because I've been thinking about kissing you for more than a few seconds since that day in Biyala and-"

"Wally! Shut up and just kiss me alread-" He wasted no time, locking their lips and wrapping his arms tightly around her waist. She grabbed his hair and twirled it between her fingers. She let go after a minute or two and pressed herself closer to him, chest to chest. She felt him fumble a little, falling behind on their routine sucking and tugging at each other's lips. He lifted her up barely off the ground.

"Gosh, beautiful, even if I lift weights I can't lift you." He said it between kisses. She noticed how plump his lips had gotten from their usual thin line of pink. She wondered if hers were the same, although probably even fuller and darker with blood pulsing through them as the two mouths fought for superiority.

"You really wanna stop doing this..." She leaned back, letting his lips brush against air. He looked confused, then hurt, then worried then composed himself.

"If you want to, beautiful, but I know you can't resist me."

"Oh," She got up close to him until their noses bumped. "I can, but can you?"

"You're the worst." He kissed her again, letting their cut and thrust go and taking advantage of the time they shared. (They didn't notice Conner open the door to tell them M'gann made some cupcakes and wanted to know if they wanted any. He looked slightly appalled at their total disregard for boundaries, but he knew he and the Martian were no better so he closed the door quietly. When M'gann asked why they weren't coming he just said, "Uh, homework," before changing the topic of conversation. He couldn't look at them the same way for weeks.)

Hi guys! First of all, thank you for the kind words you've left me in the review section. I appreciate it a lot! Thank you also for all the favorites and follows. I appreciate them just as much. Furthermore, I'm just saying, but I'm taking any requests for a Spitfire story or a new chapter for this one. Just leave them in the review section or message me, either will work. Thank you again, guys! And just a disclaimer for everything mentioned in this entire story, none of the characters and related TV shows (i.e. Doctor Who) belong to me even if I wish I came up with concepts as great as the creators of these shows did! The plot, though, does, so I'm glad you all are enjoying it. :)


	6. Chapter 6

When he first realized he was in love with her, he was lying in bed in a fit of insomnia. It wasn't any special day, just another Thursday of soaking in the summer heat on his laptop and looking at the new scientific breakthroughs on the numerous news sites he visits when he's looking for inspiration for a new experiment.

The digital bedside clock read 2:17, with its colon blinking red, on and off and on and off. He stared at it until he felt faintly catatonic and somewhat captured in a trance. His thoughts whizzed by (when did they not? He is a speedster, after all. No doubt he likes it when things go quickly.) He didn't really mind it, though. He was used to thinking much faster than most people (he and Dick where best friends because somehow, even without the super speed, Dick could keep up with him). He had learned to rush by his thoughts, not lingering when something odd came up as to not upset himself. But somehow he caught it; in the midst of thinking about that soft snort she makes when she laughs so hard and is left gasping for breath, the word "love" came into his head.

Of course, he tried to shake it off. It was only June. They were only just beginning, just allowing the summer-shaded sun to let them soak up the birth of their relationship. They were no longer just enemies, acquaintances, teammates, friends, but lovers? There was the word again! Love. It was ringing in his ears, reverberating in his head.

He rubbed his fingertips together. It was getting out of hand, this thought of his. It should have floated away by that time. Love? It must be the hormones, all that fucking dopamine and seratonin and adrenaline going to his head and making him insane. It had happened before, with that Cassidy girl who moved after eighth grade and really got him worked up (He was a pubescent teenaged boy; as far as he was considered, it was perfectly normal, perfectly natural, perfectly human). But this was different. This was Artemis Crock, who could as easily kill a fly as she could a human. The same Artemis Crock who had seen him half naked in the pool after a couple of runs and taken his shirt and pants, laughing and gloating to Robin that he had been idiotic enough to leave his clothes in the middle of the place. (The same Artemis Crock he had seen go swimming some time in November in that same pool. The same Artemis Crock whose perfect curves had somehow imprinted themselves in his mind since that day.) And yet, science couldn't explain how his stomach turned in knots all over itself when he thought about how her tongue darts around in her mouth when she writes or how, before faking a certain attack, the right side of her mouth jotted upward in some kind of sadistic smirk. Somehow, it was still unclear to him. Something inside of him was sounding, like a gong that was repeatedly smashed. "_I love her_," it seemed to chime. It wouldn't go away. It just stayed there, unwavering as if it was a dead insect in his head.

It was 3:43 and he was wide awake. Sleep seemed far away, unreachable, and too good to be true. He began to count the stars he remembers (When he was 11, his aunt gave him a chart of a bunch of stars and their sizes that he'd been memorizing since that day) Sirius. Pollux and Castor. Betelguese, Cannis major... The list of those untouchable things in the sky just kept increasing in length, longer and longer and more obscure from view. Somewhere there her names appears, like a mismatched red sock among whites. He doesn't know how it happens. Her name isn't among those of the celestial bodies, but it's the kind of name that seems to print in bold next to the thin lettered fonts. To him, she might as well be a star, though. She seemed out of reach and somehow, with a lot of jumping and grasping and pent up muscle, he managed to catch that slippery plastic string that coils down and out of the blonde tangled mess she calls her hair and he calls perfection. And so, the words replayed again and again until somehow he manages to shut his eyes for a minute or two, before groggily waking up with a groan from the lower portion of his throat.

He leaves a note for his mom pinned to the refrigerator with childish, faded magnets that spell out his name (He favours the lime-coloured "A" because it reminds him of the bow that used to be situated in the room full of his termed "souvenirs") His laces were tied, his shirt on, and his clock blinking 5:14.

The moment he stepped outside, he knew it was a good day to run, but a bad time. The sun was peaking just over the trees lining the old home of his babysitter that got pregnant a decade before. He decided to run that way, rather than toward the towering city buildings and corporate sellouts, even if that way was the east and sent rays of light directly into his eyes. He didn't really mind; at least it was something other than the clichely dubbed "L-word." When he runs, he doesn't really think. Somehow his feet take over and become his eyes and his brain and they just move on their own. He always commented about how he could be the next Olympic gold-medalist in running, and more often than not, he received a smack on the head and a comment of how big-headed he was from Artemis)

He arrived at the top of the hill with nothing more than a slight pant. The hill was pretty small, but he distinctly remembered how large it seemed when he was small and naive and ingenuous. He used to go up there whenever he had a chance to play with his old friend Jaime and they'd run up the hill and race to climb the sycamore tree with few leaves and too many crackling branches. The last day he was up there was when he was eight and a quarter and broke a small, unstable branch as well as his arm. His mom berated him on the way to the hospital, but he didn't mind because Uncle Barry and Aunt Iris always came with some ice cream and a new story about work that never failed to interest him.

He doesn't notice it until he's about a story from the bottom, his foot dangling precariously from the edge. That's when the word- "love"- came back and left him climbing higher and higher until he was possibly going to drop and the branch was possibly going to shatter. He remembered the view being more majestic- more untouchable and intriguing and amazing- but as he let his sinewy legs rest, something seemed to appear out of the sky's edge.

It began as a wave, cascading and golden and glowing and slowly eating up the sky's surface. It reminded him of her hair and how it gets tangled up in itself if left unbrushed for a night. He recalled that time they slept side by side and how he could smell some musk and a hint of coconut in it; he remembered how he woke up with gold all around his face and tickling his nose.

The gold ate up the rest of the sky's faded pink and purple and blues of the night that past and the word kept coming back to him. Love. Love. He didn't dare voice it. That would have made it real and a sixteen-year-old in love is the kind of thing that parents scoff at and tell their friends about with cynicism. But as the gold ate up the sky and the sky faded from black to a pale blue, he knew he couldn't stop it. It was either wait in that tree until his mother freaked out, called Uncle Barry and have themselves a manly talk about love, or admit his feelings now and let himself carry on with his day.

He walked back home, his mind focused on his decision. Love. He loved her from the long, unkempt toenails she gets too lazy to cut, to the ferocity of her part that doesn't let the shorter bit of the blond fall any other way than in the odd, air-pocketed bangs she wears daily.

His mother had pancakes for him when he gets home. The syrup reminded him of her, probably because he knows she loves them, as she had mentioned to M'gann one day a few months back. His mom asked how his sleep was and he said the standard "fine" and carried on, stuffing his mouth with pancakes and syrup and orange juice.

The words would have to wait.

(He didn't tell her he loved her until late the following January, when she had pelted him with a snowball in the face and tackled him when he tried to run back behind a building to take cover and prepare to launch another attack. She hadn't said it back, but the way she looked at him and rapidly reached down and blown snow into his face said what her mouth wasn't willing to yet.)

**AUTHOR'S NOTE**

Hey, guys! Long time no write! Have y'all been keeping up with the show because I know I have! So much of me is waiting for some Spitfire or at least some Wally action, but he's been so out of the picture! My heart feels like it's literally breaking because the show's stopping... my heart will not go on right now. But I'm going to try to keep YJ alive in our hearts somewhat with more stories.

I'm thinking of starting up an action story when I finish this, but I don't wanna start it now because, knowing me, I'm going to get sidetracked and forget about this story, which I don't want to do because I promised myself I'd finish a multi-chapter story before my birthday (so expect loads of updates between the days of March 17 and June 18, okay? I'll try my best to finish this up between those dates!)

I was also thinking about including an M rated chapter, but leaving this at T. I'll indicate beforehand, of course, whether or not the chapter with the, for lack of better term, _explicit _scene comes up, but it's most definitely a few chapters away and I just thought I'd give you all a heads up.

As for the usual, I don't own Young Justice or the characters, just a teensy bit of the plot written in this story and a few unfamiliar characters. If I owned Young Justice, it would never end and I would make a movie and make Wally more important this season (not to insult master Greg because he's a genius).


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